1. Field of the Invention
Embodiments of the present invention generally relate to RTP media streams, and, in particular, to a system and method for controlling playback of an RTP media stream depending upon the source of the RTP media stream.
2. Description of Related Art
Multimedia Voice Over Internet Protocol (“VoIP”) communication sessions may use the Real-Time Transport Protocol (“RTP”) to transport the audio and/or video multimedia streams. An audio RTP multimedia stream may originate from different sources at different times during a VoIP call, and the audio from the different sources may have differing level of interest to a participant depending upon the source of the RTP multimedia stream. For example, in some server-based conferencing solutions, participants dial in to the conference server to join the conference. In some of these cases, a conference host may not be able to join the conference at a scheduled time due to a variety of potential problems (e.g., a technical problem, a network outage, other phone problems, etc.). Typically, a conference server plays music until the conference host joins the call.
Typically, participants of the conference call are not interested in listening to music while waiting on hold, so music typically has a low level of interest to most participants. However, participants may want to know when a host joins the conference, which may be indicated by a beep or other audible sound, or to know when the actual conversation starts. Currently, participants have to either listen to the music or have to keep the phone on a low volume level. If the participant is using a speakerphone, the music may be annoying to other nearby people.
If a VoIP session contains RTP streams from different sources, present solutions treat the RTP streams substantially the same, and apply a default action. The present solutions fail to provide a source-based classification of RTP, or to take action based on a class of RTP. For example, a participant may want to ignore RTP only from a music server but may want to be alerted when a conference host joins the call. The presently known solutions do not address this problem.
Therefore, a need exists to control playback of an RTP media stream depending upon its source or classification, in order to provide improved customer satisfaction.